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Deconstructing Bob Dylan

(AP) - They call themselves Dylanologists, and in
the words of one of their leaders, there's something wrong with you
if you're not "intrigued, enthralled and obsessed" with Bob
Dylan.

These scholars and writers, most with prestigious university
posts, are more likely to compare the music legend to Walt Whitman
than to Bruce Springsteen.

On Tuesday, a whole crowd of them were
wrapping up a four-day symposium, billed as the largest ever of its
kind, at the University of Minnesota in the state where Dylan was
born.

Kevin DettmarMPR Photo/Jim Bickal

"Dylan has entered my day job," said Richard Thomas, a
professor of Greek and Latin at Harvard University who lectured on
Dylan's similarity to epic poets like Ovid and Virgil. "I've come
to see him as someone as worthy as the great poets on whom I've
been fortunate enough to work."

The symposium - titled "Highway 61 Revisited: Dylan's Road from
Minnesota to the World" - drew about 250 participants from as far
away as Italy and Japan. It coincided with a traveling exhibit on
Dylan at the school's Weisman Art Museum.

Eminent
Dylanologists discoursed on all that followed in the ensuing five
decades, with lectures and panel discussions on everything from
Dylan's parallels to the pop artist Andy Warhol, to his influence
on "International Social Movements of the Cold War."

"Dylan, he's just so vast," said Colleen Sheehy, the symposium
organizer and a curator at the Weisman. "There's so many
perspectives to take on him. There are so many points of entry to
his work, and it leads you to so many aspects of American history
and culture."

Dylanologist from FranceMPR Photo/Jim Bickal

Dylan's lyrics have become popular texts in college-level poetry
classes, said Kevin Dettmar, an English professor at Southern
Illinois University in Carbondale.

"It's sort of the classic bait and switch," Dettmar said.
"They try to reel in the students with Dylan and then sneak in
some Keats."

Some people in academic circles are still skeptical about
including Dylan in the canon, Dettmar said. "They wonder if he has
lasting power, which I think is ridiculous."

Dettmar is putting his money where his mouth is, as editor of
the upcoming "Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan," which will serve
as an all-purpose academic resource for students of Dylan and put
him alongside such past Cambridge subjects as William Shakespeare
and James Joyce.

And what does the cryptic singer think of this kind of
attention? Well, he once famously derided Dylanologists who
"dissect my songs like rabbits."